


Voyage of the Lost

by tablelamp



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everybody Lives, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24432208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tablelamp/pseuds/tablelamp
Summary: Stadi was used to being awakened by the strong feelings of others.  She could go from a sound sleep in her quarters to walking onto the bridge, ready to take the helm, in fifteen minutes after a panicked thought from a crew member.  One emotion she was not used to waking up to, however, was curiosity.Or, what happens when the crew members killed by the displacement wave were also taken by the Caretaker and turn out to be only mostly dead.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Voyage of the Lost

Stadi was used to being awakened by the strong feelings of others. She could go from a sound sleep in her quarters to walking onto the bridge, ready to take the helm, in fifteen minutes after a panicked thought from a crew member. One emotion she was not used to waking up to, however, was curiosity.

She opened her eyes to see someone looking at her.

"It worked," the being said. "You are revived."

"I guess so," Stadi said. Her memory was hazy; the last thing she remembered was being aboard Voyager. "Were we captured?"

"This I do not know," the being said, still radiating strong curiosity and interest. "You can feel my thoughts?"

As Stadi didn't know the species of the being that had found her, she thought it might be best to use human rather than Betazoid levels of courtesy. "With your permission."

The being was pleased to have been asked. "Yes, you may look."

Stadi reached gently into the being's mind--Kalla, they were called. Kalla had been on a survey mission and had found a debris field, with one area that seemed to be the remnants of a space station. Ship's sensors had detected an unbreached area of the station, and Kalla, being curious, had beamed in and had found Stadi in some sort of stasis pod.

"Is it correct that I should have awakened you?" Kalla asked, a surge of worry accompanying their words.

"Yes," Stadi said, wishing the effects of the stasis pod weren't quite so muddling. "I don't know how I got here. I was on Voyager..."

Voyager. The displacement wave. The ship shaking, damaged, and the instruction to brace for impact.

"What is Voyager?" Kalla asked.

"My ship," Stadi said, the proprietary streak every pilot had in her vessel coming through. "We were overcome by a displacement wave, and that's the last thing I remember."

Kalla nodded. "My people have counted many displacement waves in this section of space. I was only permitted to journey here because there had been no waves for several cycles." 

Stadi took a deep breath. "Could you tell if...was all the wreckage from the space station?"

"There appeared to be the remains of a ship, with a different energy signature," Kalla said apologetically, "but it would be impossible to reconstruct what kind of ship it was."

Voyager was lost, then, but the crew couldn't have been. Stadi looked at Kalla hopefully. "Are there other stasis pods in this sector?"

"There may be," Kalla said. "Yours was the first I found, and its cycle was complete."

Stadi wasn't sure she understood. "Cycle?"

"These are repair pods," Kalla said, "designed to heal cellular damage. My people have something similar."

So Stadi had been hurt in the transition to wherever this was. She tried to move for the first time and found her limbs stiff but not immobile. "May I help you look for others?"

"Certainly," Kalla agreed.

They found Lieutenant Commander Cavit first, and the light on his repair pod was blinking. Stadi touched Kalla's mind and saw that her pod had looked the same. Kalla waved a hand in front of the pod's sensor, and its hatch hissed open. Cavit didn't have the benefit of feeling the emotions around him, however, so he took longer than Stadi had to awaken.

"Lieutenant?" he asked, peering at her groggily. Then he looked at Kalla. "Who's this?"

"Kalla found us here," Stadi said.

That drew Cavit's attention to his unfamiliar surroundings. "Where's here?"

"I will show you with my thoughts," Kalla offered.

That amused Cavit. "Not all of us can feel thoughts." He inclined his head toward Stadi. "You're the pilot, Lieutenant. Have a look."

"Aye, sir," Stadi said. Kalla was good at visualizing complicated images, and showed Stadi star chart upon star chart. It was only after the fifth or sixth chart that Stadi began to understand.

"Do you require more?" Kalla asked.

"No, thank you, Kalla," Stadi said. She looked at Cavit, trying to stay calm. "Sir, we're in the Delta Quadrant."

Cavit caught his breath, just slightly, and that was the only surprise he allowed himself to show. Of course, Stadi could feel the rest of it, so the facade of command didn't work on her. "You're sure?"

"There are no constellations like this anywhere in the Alpha Quadrant," Stadi said.

"What are Alpha and Delta Quadrants?" Kalla asked.

"They're how we map the galaxy," Stadi said. "Betazed, my homeworld, is in the Alpha Quadrant."

Kalla nodded, understanding. "You are far from home."

"Not by choice," Cavit said.

They searched the remaining area of the space station, but found only two more pods--those of T'Prena and Dr. Fitzgerald.

"I guess if there are only four of us, it's useful to have two members of medical staff," Cavit said wryly.

Dr. Fitzgerald was still scanning the repair pod. "I'd love to take this technology home. We can heal some wounds, but not on this scale."

"It would perhaps be logical," T'Prena said, "to begin to plan for our future. This enclosure has kept us alive but it will not remain intact indefinitely."

"It's all we've got," Cavit said. "It seems Voyager didn't survive."

"Voyager didn't," Stadi said, "but the crew did."

Dr. Fitzgerald gave Stadi a skeptical look. "I'd like to know how you know that."

"Because I would've felt them die," Stadi said. The death of one crew member was agonizing enough. Even asleep in a pod, she would have known if the rest of the crew had been lost.

"Okay," Cavit said. "So if everyone else made it out alive, all we have to do is find them."

Dr. Fitzgerald snorted. "We don't even know what kind of ship they left on. There's no way of tracing the warp signature of a ship we don't recognize."

"They will be traveling in the direction of the Alpha Quadrant," T'Prena said. She didn't need to explain why she thought so; Stadi would have done the same thing, and she could feel that Cavit and Fitzgerald would have too.

Stadi turned to Kalla. "How far does your path take you in the direction of the Alpha Quadrant?" She showed Kalla the star charts in her own mind, with a line moving in the direction of the Alpha Quadrant.

Kalla made an interested sound. "My path is my own to chart as I wish."

"Is there room on your ship to travel with you?" Stadi asked. "Or would we be crowding out other crew?"

Kalla shook their head. "There is room for you, but I cannot promise comfort."

Dr. Fitzgerald laughed. "Oh, well. At least you're honest."

"Mine is not a large vessel, but I have known it to hold crews of up to seven," Kalla said. "And there is ample energy for your food."

"We won't inconvenience you," Cavit said. "Once we reach a place where we can buy a ship of our own, we'll be out of your way."

Kalla frowned at him. "I am an explorer, and you are members of species I do not know. How could exploring the cultures of unknown lifeforms possibly be in my way?"

"A logical sentiment," T'Prena said with a nod.

"In that case," Cavit said, "we'd be very grateful if you'd take us with you."

Kalla nodded. "I will show you the way."

As they approached the dock leading to Kalla's ship, Stadi wondered how long they had been in stasis. Were the crew of Voyager still nearby? Had it been days or months since they had gone? Would it even be possible for Kalla's ship to catch up to whatever sort of vessel or vessels the rest of the crew were using?

Hopefully they would find the answers to those questions. And who knew what might happen in the meantime?


End file.
